Taxpayers should be aware that Congress has just added a new tax penalty to the existing 140+ tax penalties. This new tax penalty is called the frivolous submissions penalty.

Essentially this penalty allows the IRS to assess a $5,000 fee against a taxpayer who submits a frivolous submission to the IRS. A frivolous submission is any offer in compromise, installment agreement, collection due process hearing, or taxpayer assistance order request submitted with the intent to delay processing of cases.

Taxpayers should be particularly wary of this penalty because the statute gives the IRS the authority to determine if the penalty is to apply. Thus, the IRS could deem any submission to be frivolous.

Congress did build in an escape for taxpayers in that the IRS can only impose the penalty after the IRS sends written notice to the taxpayer that the submission was frivolous and the taxpayer does not withdraw the submission within 30 days.

This new penalty has not received a lot of publicity, so there is a good chance that it may catch a number of taxpayers off guard. This is especially true for taxpayers who are actively working with the IRS to resolve their IRS tax troubles.

The IRS will not be able to impose this new penalty on taxpayers, until the IRS releases instructions as to what types of "submissions" will automatically be deemed "frivolous." We can expect this IRS list to be out in the very near future.

Taxpayers should contact a tax attorney immediately if they receive notice that the IRS has deemed a submission to be frivolous.

Tax attorney Kreig Mitchell is a Denver, Colorado tax lawyer whose practice is limited to helping resolve IRS tax troubles and helping taxpayers structure their financial transactions for tax efficiency. You can find out more about Tax Attorney Kreig Mitchell on his http://www.irstaxtrouble.com/about.htm website.

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